Just because everyone dumps their savings in the stock market doesn't make it any more functional. I think it's obvious by now, considering the actions of the F

Just because everyone dumps their savings in the stock market doesn't make it any more functional. I think it's obvious by now, considering the actions of the Fed, that the market is propped-up. The debate is actually whether this action is good to the broad economy. A pro argument would sound much like yours - because many people's life savings went into 401k it would be a disaster to let it fall (read be accurately priced). The cons is that this disproportionately helps the upper echelons of society, further increasing inequality - main street gets mostly decimated. There was a good analogy I read some days ago by someone on HN: > Equity markets are not supposed to be so timid that they hide behind the skirts of grandma and cling to grandpa's legs. The picture is more like they're holding a gun to your grandparents' heads. So basically protecting your life savings is now entirely correlated with speculators winning big. This wouldn't be a problem if we'd all be winning and the pie was large enough for everyone but it definitely is not and it's going in the wrong direction.